Ipswich native pens novel inspired by family letters

Pvt. Arthur G. LaVallee died on a battlefield in France at 22 years, 2 months and 10 days in September 1918, just two months before the armistice ended World War I.

His family never forgot him.

Beverly Perna/ Ipswich@wickedlocal.com

Pvt. Arthur G. LaVallee died on a battlefield in France at 22 years, 2 months and 10 days in September 1918, just two months before the armistice ended World War I.

His Salem family never forgot him.

Now his great-niece, former Ipswich resident Jeanne LaVallee, tells his story in her novel, “So Far from Story Street.”

LaVallee said she grew to feel she was meant to write Arthur’s story after a series of experiences seemed to guide her to it. She studied French in school and college, visited France as a student and again with her father, Norman LaVallee, when they located Arthur’s grave.

Then, during an afternoon visit with her father at his home on Farley Avenue, he pulled out a long, slim cardboard box from his desk drawer and said, “Jeanne, I think you may want to have this.”

“I opened it to find a treasure: Several very small notebooks, which were turned into diaries, penned by Arthur during his life as a soldier. In addition, there were several postcards, letters and photographs, all collected there, documenting his last years of life,” she said.

LaVallee will pass these documents on to her daughter, Frannie.

“So Far from Story Street” begins in June 1914, at the time of two apocalyptic events, which took place within three days of each of each other: The Great Fire of Salem, burning two-thirds of the city to the ground and the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in the Balkans, which sparked World War I.

“It is fictionalized history; but like all fiction, it often tells more truth than what's in the history books,” she said. “Its pacifist theme is that war never solves problems, rather, it only creates new ones.”

Readers will follow the stories of Joseph Lavoix of Salem based on Arthur and Phillipe Pasquier, a young Frenchman who has to join his compatriots in the fight against the Germans. The reader alternatively follows both young men through their adventures and trials as they face the tragic times of the era of “the lost generation.”

LaVallee said the French soldier is a completely fictional character. “I lived in Paris during the year 1983-84 (junior year of college) and have taught French for 20 years, so I have a very good understanding of the culture, geography and language,” she said.

LaVallee said she did a lot of reading, books and on the Internet, to prepare herself to write the story.

She found an Internet site with letters from a WWI soldier, Sam Avery, who served in the 103rd Massachusetts Field Artillery.

“I also read Barbara Tuchman's wonderful book, 'The Guns of August,' which is very thorough coverage of the pre-war and first month of the war periods, and 'All Quiet on the Western Front,' by Erich Maria Remarque, which is a very moving account of a German soldier's life during the war. I also read 'The Salem Fire,' by Arthur B. Jones.”

LaVallee, a 1981 graduate of Ipswich High School, also has WW I connections to the maternal side of her family, the Martels.

Her family moved to Farley Avenue in Ipswich from Salem in 1967. “My maternal grandfather, Arthur Raymond Martel, was born in Ipswich in 1893, and he and his brothers Truffley, Joseph and Wilfred also went to France during WWI, and they all returned from the war,” she said.

“Mostly, writing this story was very healing because I was able to uncover a lot of family ‘stuff’ that had built up over the years in my father’s family. I talk about this in the ‘Afterword’ of the book,” she said.

LaVallee worked for the Ipswich Chronicle after high school, then earned degrees in literature at Wesleyan University, the University of Cologne and New York University. She has traveled extensively, mostly in western Europe, and has lived in both Paris and Cologne. Since 1985 she has worked as an educator, writer and visual artist in New England, Paris, Cologne and New York, where she now lives and works in the East Village.

LaVallee said although Ipswich is part of her DNA, she has found the town has changed a lot in 30-plus years. She returns to visit her sister, Laura LaVallee O’Flynn, and her family several times a year. In January she got to watch her niece, Brigid O’Flynn, play basketball when the Ipswich players participated in a tourney in Brooklyn.